Liber Necris – Negative Creator

Sometimes you click play on an album
without knowing quite what to expect and find yourself blown away by
what you find, and this is one of such occasions. Liber Necris’ EP Negative Creator
is one of the most ferociously heavy records I have ever had the
borderline-masochistic pleasure of listening to. Drawing together
influences from death metal, black metal, thrash, hardcore, and crust,
Liber Necris throw them all into the cauldron and what comes out is
nothing short of an auditory assault on the senses.

Liber Necris formed in Leeds, England in 2010. They released their debut EP The Immutable Aversion back in 2011 and Negative Creator is
their first release since, recorded by Rob Hobson at Silent City. I
cannot knock the production at all: it perfectly captures the visceral
sound of their music, while also adding a lot of atmosphere to the
music, such as the howls in the background towards the end of opening
track ‘In the Beginning (First Light)’ and the screams off in the
distance on closing track ‘The Eulogy for Our Earth.’

The music itself is brutal. If you were to ask me for another band as a sort of reference point for what to expect from this album, I would probably say Plague Widow,
who blend similar influences to a quite different result. The vocals
are varied, shifting between a high pitch black metal shriek (with a
considerable amount of power behind it too, it must be said) and a more
guttural death metal growl. The guitars likewise display their influence
from both black and death metal, with tremolo picked passages, powerful
riffs, and even some passages that border on breakdowns – of the good
kind, you can be assured. The drumming is seriously intense stuff, with blastbeats to accentuate the heaviest and fastest moments, and a lot of variety through the tracks.

Closing track ‘The Eulogy of the Earth’ is one of the most interesting
of the tracks here to me on the basis that it deviates so strongly from
the formula established on the previous three. The guitar leads are much
more melodic with a more atmospheric introduction before the blast
beats and black metal screams kick in (somewhat reminding me of early
Watain), though the middle section of this song settles into a strong
formula of vicious, intricate riffs and powerful drumming, while
alternating between howls and growls. The section just over 2 minutes in
reminds me of some of the more recent post-black metal music movement,
and then the band lays on some atmospherics in the background to
complement the tortured guttural vocals. The final minute of the track
moves from haunting and hypnotic to a powerful declaration of intent,
ending this record as forcefully as they began it.